10 Signs it’s Time to Let Go

Holding on is being brave, but letting go and moving on is often what makes us stronger and happier.

Here are ten signs it’s time to let go:

Someone expects you to be someone you’re not. – Don’t change who you are for anyone else. It’s wiser to lose someone over being who you are, than to keep them by being someone you’re not. Because it’s easier to mend a broken heart, than it is to piece together a shattered identity. It’s easier to fill an empty space in your life where someone else used to be, than it is to fill the empty space inside yourself where YOU used to be.

A person’s actions don’t match their words. – Everybody deserves somebody who helps them look forward to tomorrow. If someone has the opposite effect on you, because they are consistently inconsistent and their actions don’t match up with their words, it’s time to let them go. It’s always better to be alone than to be in bad company. True friendship is a promise made in the heart – silent, unwritten, unbreakable by distance, and unchangeable by time. Don’t listen to what people say; watch what they do. Your true friends will slowly reveal themselves over time.

You catch yourself forcing someone to love you. – Let us keep in mind that we can’t force anyone to love us. We shouldn’t beg someone to stay when they want to leave. That’s what love is all about – freedom. However, the end of love is not the end of life. It should be the beginning of an understanding that love sometimes leaves for a reason, but never leaves without a lesson. If someone truly loves you, they will never give you a reason to doubt it. Anyone can come into your life and say how much they love you, but it takes someone really special to stay in your life and prove how much they love you. Sometimes it takes awhile to find the right person, but the right person is always worth the wait. Read The Road Less Traveled.

An intimate relationship is based strictly on physical attraction. – Being beautiful is more than how many people you can get to look at you, or how others perceive you at a single glance. It’s about what you live for. It’s about what defines you. It’s about the depth of your heart, and what makes you unique. It’s about being who you are and living out your life honestly. It’s about those little quirks that make you, you. People who are only attracted to you because of your pretty face or nice body won’t stay by your side forever. But the people who can see how beautiful your heart is will never leave you.

Someone continuously breaks your trust. – Love means giving someone the chance to hurt you, but trusting them not to. When you completely trust a person, without any doubt, you’ll automatically get one of two results – a FRIEND for life or a LESSON for life. Either way there’s a positive outcome. Either you confirm the fact that this person cares about you, or you get the opportunity to weed them out of your life and make room for those who do. In the end you’ll discover who’s fake, who’s true, and who would risk it all for you. And trust me, some people will totally surprise you.

Someone continuously overlooks your worth. – Know your worth! When you give yourself to someone who doesn’t respect you, you surrender pieces of your soul that you’ll never get back. There comes a point when you have to let go and stop chasing some people. If someone wants you in their life, they’ll find a way to put you there. Sometimes you just need to let go and accept the fact that they don’t care for you the way you care for them. Let them leave your life quietly. Letting go is oftentimes easier than holding on. We think it’s too hard to let go, until we actually do. Then we ask ourselves, “Why didn’t I do this sooner?”

You are never given a chance to speak your mind. – Sometimes an argument saves a relationship, whereas silence breaks it. Speak up for your heart so that you won’t have regrets. Life is not about making others happy. Life is about being honest and sharing your happiness with others.

You are frequently forced to sacrifice your happiness. – If you allow people to make more withdrawals than deposits in your life, you will be out of balance and in the negative before you know it. Know when to close the account. It’s always better to be alone with dignity than in a relationship that constantly requires you to sacrifice your happiness and self-respect. Read Stumbling on Happiness.

You truly dislike your current situation, routine, job, etc. – It’s better to be a failure at something you love than to succeed at doing something you hate. Don’t let someone who gave up on their dreams talk you out of going after yours. The best thing you can do in life is follow your heart. Take risks. Don’t just make the safe and easy choices because you’re afraid of what might happen. If you do, nothing will ever happen. Chances must be taken, mistakes must be made, and lessons must be learned. It might be an uphill climb, but when you reach that mountaintop it will be worth every ounce of blood, sweat and tears you put into it.

You catch yourself obsessing over, and living in, the past. – Eventually you will overcome the heartache, and forget the reasons you cried, and who caused the pain. Eventually you will realize that the secret to happiness and freedom is not about control or revenge, but in letting things unfold naturally, and learning from your experiences over the course of time. After all, what matters most is not the first, but the final chapter of your life, which unveils the details of how well you wrote your story. So let go of the past, set yourself free, and open your mind to the possibility of new relationships and priceless experiences. Read The Power of Now.

And the one thing you should never let go of is hope. Remember what you deserve and keep pushing forward. Someday all the pieces will come together. Unimaginably good things will transpire in your life, even if everything doesn’t turn out exactly the way you had anticipated. And you will look back at the times that have passed, smile, and ask yourself, “How did I get through all of that?”

Hard to hear the reality…i Just need to learn to set him free…my guy isn’t happy in the relationship but I beg and almost force him to stay. I cry with no comfort but holding myself. I want him happy with me, but the truth is…He is miserable with me

Thank you for a wonderful post. This has helped in my life to let go of so much hurt from my husband and just move on. We have a 7 month old baby girl but I just felt overwhelmed thinking about his mistakes, my lack of strength and my daughters future. You guys are amazing for caring and sharing happiness.

This it’s just I needed to read to pat myself in the back as a sign that I’m on the right path. I can also pass it on to so many people out there who just need a little positive reinforcement or inspiration. This is wonderful and so powerful… Amazing.

I’m in same place as Mira. I know he’s not right for me, and he told me himself that he loves me but is not in love with me. I’m one of his only friends so he still wants to be part of my life. When I met him 11 months ago I just got divorced and was going through cancer. I think i was at lowest point in my life, and his treatment of me was manipulative, disguised as spirituality, and in the end has killed my self esteem. We planned a future together… I was his eternal partner. Now he says he wasn’t in love with me. My heart is crushed. I can’t stop thinking about him. I know I have to take the advice from this post, but I miss him so much.

Thanks for letting me vent! I will keep rereading this post. And the comments really help too! It helps to know you’re not the only one going through this.

I came across your site accidentally two months back. Ever since I have been a regular . I have subscribed to your daily email updates. Best thing about those emails are they always come with the right message for the moment. Like yesterday i was feeling really depressed over my ex boyfriend after seeing his picture on FB with a new woman and then on checking my mail I saw the mail with message ‘10 Signs it’s Time to Let Go. I felt really better after reading it. Thanks a lot for being there. You guys are doing really marvelous job.

I totally agreed with you about what you said. The emails came at the right time for me too.
I am so glad that you also had the same experience and I believe that there are tons of people would think the same.
LT

Thank you for this article!
I was constantly wondering whether I should be in this relationship I am currently in or should I let it go.
My situation is best explained by #2,3,5,6,7,9,10
All these days I tried to make up my mind and stick to my relationship thinking things will be OK soon and I should stick because I love this person.
But A part of my mind kept me reminding YOU ARE NOT HAPPY.

And now I know what I should do.
I truly feel that that’s what I should do.
Thank you 🙂

This was so beautiful and it was literally, i think, a sign from the heavens. I just finished praying my rosary.

I just ended it with my boyfriend on Saturday and it was because of all these reasons. I wasn’t sure about my choice and slowly i was feeling like I made the wrong one, but reading this gave me all the assurance I needed!
This definitely will keep me moving forward for what I truly deserve and need in my life. Thank you!

I have been struggling through the process of emptying my parent’s house after they both passed recently. This post helps me realize that at this point there is nothing left to “fix” other than my perspective on our relationship and what was left unsaid will always remain that way. Time to let go.

Thank you, for this and all your other thought-provoking and inspiring posts. Thank you for sharing your insight in such a caring, accessible and inclusive manner. Thank you.

Why didn’t l bump into this site when l was going through my last relationship. Wow so insightful and very true. And those moments l made a fool of myself trying to make him see that l loved him. I can only laugh at myself but l have learned from my mistake and l believe the best is yet to come. Thank you for the blog.

I like the point about It’s better to be alone with dignity than staying in a relationship and sacrificing your happiness and self respect.

This is what several women I know have done after many years in loveless marriages. They have taken what I think is a brave step, in starting a new life alone, but only after their children had grown up and left home.

Their friends thought they were happy and content housewives, but it was a charade. Deep inside they were miserable and frustrated.
They thought though it was their duty to keep the family unit intact while the children were growing up.

I have seen one of them recently, the change in her whole outlook on life is amazing!

Thank you for this post! I am still in grieving mode but I have come to terms with the fact that this guy ‘Johnny’ doesn’t like me back. I have accepted that he will never call me, text me, ask me to hang out with him and actually follow through, or make the effort for me to be in his life. I am glad I’ve come to terms with this because holding on only makes my own spirit rot.

Physical attraction (sometimes the journey starts here), partners having expectations about each other, a little bit of mistrust, not keeping promises sometimes, overlooking partner’s worth are all what makes us humans. I am yet to find anyone with these ideal qualities. A relationship devoid of a hint of any these is ideal and tantalizing.

Even though something as wonderful as this exists, it will make the partners complacent and as the human nature is, complacence permits us to screw up and we are back to square one.

The point is: relationships can work despite these issues are just bumps on the road not walls that stop the journey.

3 and 6 wow! Totally my situation. Reading all these articles are helping me understand and making me see things I didn’t (or chose not to) see before. Just need the strength to finally end it, though it’s gonna hurt me a lot.

I liked the “Living below your means” statement ..Many of us get caught up with keeping up with the Jones’s. Then if we lose our job or our income is lessened the first ones to ignore and dump us will be the “Jones’s..” Live your OWN life and never ever envy anyone… Because you just might get what the have.

I do wonder how I’m getting through this. Getting over him is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do – and I’ve done some hard stuff. I know it’s necessary. He fit 8 of the 10 on the list. I wanted him. He wanted revenge against someone else. I was the pawn. I can’t believe how bad it hurts. Letting go a little more everyday. Remembering I deserve so much better. And the sooner I let go, the sooner what I deserve will be here.

I really needed to read this. A few months ago I had to let go of a my “best” friend. He is not easily replaceable however, I felt that I had to speak up for myself (or rather email up for myself). My feelings and thoughts were dismissed as “my issues” which left me dumbfounded as I have always been there for him. That’s where #3 and #7 are fitting. They are just more reinforcement that the relationship HAD already disolved. I was holding on to the past. I do feel better about taking the chance of speaking up for myself even though the outcome was not what I had hoped for.
Thanks guys!

Good article. While I am not in a relationship, these points mentioned above have applied in other areas. One of the things that I have learned in life is that when you are connected to people who have come to just depend on you for things you do for them and nothing more, just about every point mentioned above applies. If you are always making yourself available to people, always saying YES, then they will not value you as a person, nor respect you. That is why it is important to say no probably more often than yes, when you have relationships where people only depend on you, whether it be work, at church, or a favor for a neighbor or a friend. If you limit how much you make yourself available for favors, you can find out how and where you fit in this person’s life, if at all.